Dr. Sanderson is curious as to whether exposing people to violent video games causes them to be more aggressive. She assigns half her participants to play a violent video game for 5 minutes and the other half to play the same game for 25 minutes. Afterward, she has them play a board game and has a well-trained coder determine whether they are very aggressive in their playing style, barely aggressive, or not at all aggressive. She finds that a vast majority of her participants, regardless of group assignment, are rated as very aggressive. This outcome would be known as a(n):
A)weak manipulation.
B)ceiling effect.
C)floor effect.
D)outlier.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

A ceiling effect occurs when the task is too easy or the measure used is not sensitive enough to detect differences among participants, resulting in a high percentage of participants performing at the highest level. In this case, the high percentage of participants rated as very aggressive suggests that the measure used may not have been sensitive enough to distinguish between different levels of aggression, resulting in a ceiling effect. This outcome is not due to a weak manipulation (A), a floor effect (C), or outliers (D).

Dr Sanderson Is Curious as to Whether Exposing People to Violent